The application generally relates to the taking of soil samples. The application relates more specifically to a machine for acquiring soil samples in an agricultural field and the method of using the machine to acquire the soil samples.
The taking or acquiring of soil samples from an agricultural field and the subsequent analysis of the soil samples can be useful in increasing the crop yield for that agricultural field. However, the acquisition of soil samples has been a manually performed process that is difficult and time consuming. To take a soil sample, a person had to manually insert a probe into the ground to remove the soil or sample material from the ground, and then store and label the sample material from the probe for subsequent analysis. Another option for taking the soil sample was to use an all terrain vehicle (ATV) equipped with a device to insert the probe into the ground. However, due to the limited capabilities of the ATV, the device mounted on the ATV could not provide much additional insertion force over the insertion force that could be provided by the person. Further, if the amount of sample material removed from the ground was not a sufficient sample for analysis, additional sample material had to be removed from the ground until a sufficient sample had been obtained. The process is then repeated at the next soil sample location in the agricultural field, which can have numerous sampling points or locations depending on the size of the agricultural field. Thus, depending on the number of sampling locations in an agricultural field, a person could spend a day or more collecting the necessary soil samples from an agricultural field.
Therefore, what is needed is a machine and method that can simplify and reduce the time needed for the soil sampling process.